1846
After Lord John's failure to form a Ministry, Peel returned to power;
Gladstone replaced Stanley at the War and Colonial Office, and Stanley
became the acknowledged leader of the protectionist Opposition. Having Lord
John's assurance that the Whigs would support anti-Corn Law legislation,
Peel set about preparing his famous measure. But before it could be
discussed in Parliament, the usual explanations with regard to resignation
and resumption of office had to be gone through. In his speech on this
occasion, Lord John tried to shield Lord Grey as far as possible from the
unpopularity which he had incurred by refusing to work with Palmerston in
the same Cabinet. Feeling on both sides of the House was against Lord Grey;
for both Free Traders and Protectionists thought that Repeal ought to have
come from the Whigs, and that it was Lord Grey who had made this
impossible.
Lady John remained in Edinburgh, too ill to move. While her husband was
helping Peel at Westminster, the following letters passed between them:
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
LONDON, _January 23,_ 1846
I did not write to you last night, as I thought I could give you a
clearer account to-day. Sir Robert Peel gave up Protection
altogether on the ground that he had changed his opinion.... I dine
with the Fox Club [to-day?] and at Lansdowne House to-morrow. I
have rather startled Lord Lansdowne this morning by some of my
views about Ireland.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _January_ 25, 1846
I never doubted that you were as noble by nature as by name; and I
am now more happily convinced of it than ever. Your whole speech
was plain and excellent, but the part that I dwell upon with the
greatest pleasure is that about Lord Grey.... I generally think
your speeches a curious contrast to Sir Robert's, and it does not
fail on this occasion. His humble confession of former errors, his
appeal to our sympathies, and his heroic tone at the close, all got
rather the better of my reason while I read; but the more I think
over his conduct, the less becomes the effect of his words. Yours,
on the contrary, as usual, only gain in force the more they are
reflected on, simply because they are true. And now, having
congratulated you quite as much as is good for your vanity, I must
praise myself a little for the way in which I have hitherto borne
your absence. What with its present pain, the uncertainty as to
when it may end, and my varying and wearying state of health, I
have many a time been inclined to lie and cry; and if ever I
allowed myself to dwell in thought on the happy days which sad
memory brings to light, I _should_ lie and cry; those days
when neither night nor day could take me from your side, and when
it was as difficult to look forward to sickness or sorrow as it now
is to believe that health and happiness--such happiness as
that--are in store for us. But I do _not_ dwell upon past
enjoyments, but upon present blessings, and I _do_ lie and
talk and read and write and think cheerfully and gratefully.
Dearest, I know you cannot see much of the children, but when you
do, pray be both Papa and Mama to them. Do not let their little
minds grow reserved towards you, or your _great_ mind towards
them. Help them to apply what they hear you read from the Bible to
their own little daily pleasures and cares, and you will find how
delightfully they take it all in.
God bless you, my dearest. Pray go out every day, and take Isabel
and Bessy or one of the small ones with you sometimes to enliven
you.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _January_ 26, 1846
Your mention of the dreams which you had had of happiness for
Ireland made me sad, and you know how I shared in those dreams....
I like the way in which politics are talked here, it is far enough
from the scene of action for them to lose much of their
personality, and for all the little views to be lost in the
greater--and yet the interest is as great as in London.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
EDINBURGH, _January 28_, 1846
Well, I wonder what you will say to the debate or rather the
explanations in Parliament. Are not John's and Sir Robert's
speeches a curious contrast? and is not John a generous man? and is
not Sir Robert a puzzling one? and was there ever such a strange
state of parties? What an unhappy being a real Tory must be, at
least in England, battling so vainly against time and tide, and
doomed to see the idols of his worship crumbled to dust one after
another. In _your_ benighted country [Italy] their end is
further off; but still it must come. I am reading a book on Russia
that makes my blood boil at every page. It is called "Eastern
Europe and the Emperor Nicholas," and I am positively ashamed of
the reception we gave that wholesale murderer in our free country.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 1, 1846
The Ministry will carry their Corn Measure, but will hardly last a
month after it. What next? I think the next Government will be
Whig, as the Protection party have no corps of officers in the
House of Commons. So that their only way of avenging themselves
upon Peel is to bring in a Liberal Ministry.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
MINTO, _February_ 7, 1846
I am glad you have a satisfactory letter from the doctor. A
volunteered letter from him, as this was, must be a good sign.... I
shall all my life regret not having been with you at this most
interesting period in our political history; for the longest
letters can but barely make up for the loss of the hourly chats
upon each event with all its variations which are only known in
London. Then, I think how sad it is for you to have nobody to care,
as I should care, whether you had spoken well or ill. But all this
and much more we must bear as cheerfully as we can; and I am glad
to think that though _one wife_ is far from you, your other
wife, the House of Commons, leaves you little time to spend in
pining for her. I think you quite right in your intention of voting
for Sir Robert's measure as it is, in preference to any amendment
which would not be carried, and might delay the settlement of the
question. Not, as you well know, because I am not heart and soul a
Free Trader, but because I think it a more patriotic, as well as a
more consistent, course for you to take. Then if you come into
office, as seems probable, you may make what improvements you like,
and especially put an end to the miserable trifling about
slave-grown sugar; a question in which I take a sentimental
interest, as your first gift to me was your great sugar speech in
1841.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
HOUSE OF COMMONS, _February_ 9, 1846
Here I am in the House of Commons, on the important night of Corn,
having just introduced Morpeth as a new Member. It all makes me
very nervous--I mean to speak to-night, and I must take care not to
join in the bitterness of the Tories, and at the same time to avoid
the praise of the Ministry, which I see is the fashion. ... I am
glad you all take such interest in the present struggle--it would
be difficult not to do so. Our majority will, I hope, be eighty. As
matters stand at present no one feels sure of the Lords.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 16, 1846
The events of the last few days have been remarkable. There has
been no move, no agitation in the counties; but wherever a contest
is announced the Protection party carry it hollow.... In London the
Protectionists have created in a fortnight a very strong and
compact party, from 220 to 240, in the Commons, and no one knows
how many in the Lords--thus we are threatened with a revival of the
real old Tory party. Of course they are very civil to us, and they
all say that we ought to have settled this question and not Sir
Robert. But how things may turn out no one can say.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 21, 1846
I trust the feelings you have, and the enjoyment you seem to take
in the flowers and buds of the garden, show that you have before
you the opening Paradise of good health.
Baby's letter is very merry indeed. I long to see his little face
and curly locks again.
I am going to have a meeting at twelve and of twelve on the affairs
of Ireland. It is a thorny point, and vexes me more than the Corn
Laws. Lord Bessborough and Lansdowne are too much inclined to
coercion, and I fear we shall not agree. But on the other hand, if
we show ourselves for strong measures without lenitives, I fear we
shall entirely lose the confidence of Ireland.
_February_ 22, 1846
We are much occupied with the affairs of Ireland--I am engaged in
persuading Lansdowne to speak out upon the affairs of that unhappy
country, where a Bill called an Insurrection Act seems the ordinary
medicine.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
Minto, _February_ 23, 1846
You were quite right to send the children out in spite of the
remains of their coughs, but how hard it is for you to have all
those domestic responsibilities added to your numerous public ones.
It is more than your share, while I linger away my hours on the
sofa, without so much as a dinner to order for anybody. Your
Coercive measures for Ireland frighten me. I do not trust any
Englishman on the subject except yourself, and you cannot keep to
your own opinion in favour of leniency and act upon it. I often
think how unfortunate it is that there should be that little
channel of sea between England and Ireland. It prevents each
country from considering itself a part of the other, and a bridge
across it would make it much more difficult for Orange or Repeal
bitterness to be kept up. I send you Lord William's [26] letter.
But first I must tell you that in a former letter from him he
compared you to Antony throwing away the world for Cleopatra.... I
read one of Lord Campbell's Lives aloud yesterday evening--Sir
Christopher Hatton--a short and entertaining one; but from which it
would appear that a man can make a respectable Lord Chancellor
without having seriously studied anything except dancing....
[26] Lord John Russell's brother.
_Lord William Russell to Lady John Russell_
Genoa, _February_ 12, 1846
My dear Sister--I thank you much for your letter of the 4th from
Minto, but regret to find my letters make you not only angry, but
very angry. If I was within reach I should have my ears well
cuffed, but at this distance I am bold.... You will not have to get
into a towering passion in defending your husband from my
accusation of loving you too much and dashing the world aside and
bid it pass, that he might enjoy a quiet life with his Fanny. I
begin by obeying you and asking pardon and saying you did quite
right not to think me in earnest, and to "know that I often write
what I do not mean," a fault unknown to myself, and one to be
corrected, for it is a great fault, if not worse. The letter just
received pleases me much, for I find in it a high tone of moral
rectitude, a noble feeling of devotion to your husband's calling,
an unselfish determination to fulfil your destiny, an abnegation of
domestic comfort, a latent feeling of ambition tempered with
resignation, such as becomes a woman, that do you the highest
honour.... I think the crisis we are going through in England very
alarming ... a frightful system of political immorality is
stalking through the land--the Democracy is triumphant, the
Aristocracy is making a noble and last effort to hold its own,
unfortunately in so bad, so unjust, so selfish, so stupid a cause,
that it must fall covered with shame.... The hero of the day,
Cobden, is a great man in his way, the type of an honest
manufacturer, but for the moment all-powerful. I am domiciled with
your brother and sister, [27] under the same roof, dine daily at
their hospitable table, sit over the fire and cose and prose with
them, sometimes alone with your sister, who thinks and talks very
like you, that is, not only well but very well.
I am very affectionately yours,
W.R.
P.S.--You say it would be unworthy of John to _pine_ for
office. I think the difficulties of a Prime Minister so great and
the toil so irksome that the country ought to be full of gratitude
to any man that will undertake it. I am full of gratitude to Sir
Robert Peel for having sacrificed his ease and enjoyment for the
good of his country, and to enable us to sit in the shade under our
own fig-trees. Glory and gratitude to Peel.
[27] Lady Mary Abercromby.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 15, 1846
I have been to St. Paul's to-day. Mr. Bennett enforced still
further obedience to the Church, and what was strange, he said
Papists and Dissenters were prevented by the prejudices of
education from seeing the truth--as if the same thing were not just
as true of his own Church. I do not see how it is possible to be
out of the Roman Catholic pale and not use one's own faculties on
the interpretation of the Bible. That tells us that our Saviour
said, he who knew that to love God with all our soul and to love
our neighbour as ourself were the two great commandments, was not
far from the kingdom of God. This surely can be known and even
followed without a priest at all.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
MINTO, _February_ 27, 1846
You seem to have had a very pleasant dinner at the Berrys, and I
wish I had been at it. I wonder sometimes whether the social
enjoyments of life are for ever at an end for me: and in my hopeful
moods I plan all sorts of pleasant little _teas_ at Chesham
Place--at home from nine to eleven on certain days, in an easy way,
without smart dressing and preparation of any sort beyond a few
candles and plenty of tea. I feel and always have felt ambitious to
establish some more popular and rational kind of society than is
usual in London. But the difficulty in our position would be to
limit the numbers: however, limiting the hours would help to do
this; and I do not think one need be very brilliant or agreeable
oneself to make such a thing succeed well. But what a foolish
presumptuous being I am, lying here on my sofa, not even able to
share in the quiet amusements of Minto, making schemes for the
entertainment of all the London world! However, these dreams and
others of a more serious nature as to my future life, if God should
restore me to health, help to while away my hours of separation
from you, and make me forget for awhile how long I have been
debarred from fulfilling my natural duties, either to you, the
children, or the world. This, believe me, is the hardest of the
many hard trials that belong to illness, or at least, such an
illness as mine, in which I have mercifully but little physical
suffering.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
MINTO, _March_ 1, 1846
What pleasant times we live in, when the triumph of right
principles brings about one great and peaceful change after another
in our country; each one (this from Free Trade in a great degree)
promising an increase of happiness and diminution of war and
bloodshed to the whole world. No doubt, however, its good effects
will be but slowly perceived, and I fear there is much
disappointment in store for the millions of poor labourers, who
expect to have abundance of food and clothing the moment the Bill
becomes a law. Poor creatures, their state is most deplorable and
haunts me day and night. The very best of Poor Laws must be quite
insufficient. Indeed, wherever there is a necessity for a Poor Law
at all there must be something wrong, I think; for if each
proprietor, farmer and clergyman did his duty there would be no
misery, and if they do _not_, no Poor Law can prevent it. You
cannot think how I long for a few acres of _our own_, in order
to know and do what little I could for the poor round us. It would
not lessen one's deep pity for the many in all other parts of the
country, but one's own conscience would be relieved from what,
rightly or wrongly, I now feel as a weight upon it; and without a
permanent residence one does not become really acquainted with poor
people in their prosperity as well as adversity; one only does a
desultory unsatisfactory sort of good. I have not seen Dickens's
letter about the ragged schools of which you speak. What you say of
the devotion of the Roman Catholic priests to the charities of
religion reflects shame on ours of a purer faith, but is what I
have always supposed. The Puseyites are most like them in that as
well as in their mischievous doctrines; but then a new sect is
always zealous for good as well as for evil.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _March_ 3, 1846
I am so happy to find you have had a good night and are stronger in
feeling. If you had not told me how weak and ill you have been I
should have been beyond measure anxious; but, as it is, and with
your letters, I have been very unhappy and exceedingly
disappointed. For my hopes are often extravagant, and I love to
look forward to days of health and happiness and gratitude to God
for His blessings.... Need I say after all I have suffered on your
account that while I am conducting my campaign in Italy [28] my
thoughts are always with you? ... I cannot bear your absence. The
interest of a great crisis, and the best company of London cannot
make me tolerably patient under the misfortune of your being away;
and it is you, and you alone who could inspire me with such deep
love.
[28] An allusion to Napoleon's letters to Josephine from Italy, which she
had been reading.
Peel had taken the first step towards feeding the poor at home. He had also
done his best to relieve the immediate distress of Ireland. Shiploads of
Indian corn had been landed, and public works for the help of the destitute
established up and down the country. But the chief grievance of the Irish,
which was at the bottom of half the agrarian crime, had not been remedied.
The House of Lords, by having thrown out Peel's Bill for compensating
outgoing tenants for improvements their own money or exertions had created,
was largely responsible for the violence and sedition now threatening life
and property throughout Ireland. The true remedy having been rejected by
the Lords, the Government had to meet violence by violence. No sooner had
the Corn Bill been passed in the House of Commons than Peel brought in a
stringent Sedition Bill for Ireland. Lord John and the Whigs disliked the
Bill because it was extremely harsh.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 12, 1846
Nothing that I read in the speeches in favour of the Coercion Bill
convinced me that it would do the slightest good.... It must
embitter the Irish against England, for which there is no need.
Nothing can be more shocking than the continual outrages and
murders in Ireland; but it is the penalty we pay for a long course
of misgovernment, and from which nothing but a long course of mild
and good government can set us free; certainly not severe
indiscriminate measures which mark out Ireland still more as an
unhappy conquered province, instead of a part of the nation. Such
are my sentiments, dearest, on this subject, which always makes my
blood boil.... I read the "Giaour" two nights ago to Addy--it has
as great and as numerous beauties as any poem Byron ever wrote--but
I find I am not old enough, or wise enough, or good enough to
_bear_ Byron, and left off feeling miserable, as he always
contrives to make one; despair is what he excels in, and he makes
it such beautiful despair that all sense of right or wrong is
overwhelmed by it. I said to Addy that one always requires an
antidote after reading Byron, and that she and I ought instantly to
go and hem pocket-handkerchiefs, or make a pudding--and that is
what she has illustrated in the newspaper I send.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
HOUSE OF COMMONS, _March_, 1846
Your views about the Irish Coercion Bill are very natural; but
Bessborough, who is the best authority we have about Irish matters,
thinks it will tend to stop crime--and especially the crime of
murder. I should be loath to throw out a Bill which may have this
good effect; but I shall move a resolution which will pledge the
House to measures of remedy and conciliation. This may lead to a
great debate.... The little girls look very nice, but Toza [29] is,
if possible, thinner than ever. However, she laughs and dances like
a little fairy. I dined with Mrs. Drummond yesterday. Macaulay [30]
was there--entertaining, and not too much of a monopolist--I mean
of talk--which, like other monopolies, is very disagreeable.
[29] Victoria.
[30] Lord John had written to his wife in April, 1845: "Macaulay
made one of his splendid speeches again last night.... He is a
wonderful man, and must with the years before him be a great
leader."
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 19, 1846
After dinner we drove to Portobello sands and there got out and
walked for an hour; the sea was of the brightest blue, covered with
sails; Inchkeith and the opposite coast so clear that every
inequality of hill or rock was seen; Arthur's Seat, grand and
snowy, was behind us, and the glittering sands under our feet--the
whole beautiful far beyond description and beyond what I have yet
seen it in any weather; for the east wind and bright sun are what
it requires. How I did wish for you! I need not say that I only
half enjoyed it, as I only half enjoy anything without you. My
comfort in your absence is to think that you are not taken from me
for nothing, but for your country's service; and that even if we
could have foreseen four years ago all the various anxieties and
trials that awaited us, we should have married all the same. As it
was, we knew that ours could not be a life of quiet ease; and it
was for me to decide whether I was able to face the reverse--and I
_did_ decide, and I _am_ able--
"Io lo cercai, fui preso
Dall' alta indole sua, dal suo gran nome;
Pensai dapprima, oh pensai che incarco
E l'amor d'un uomo che a gli' altri e sopra!
Perchè allor correr, solo io nol lasciai
La sua splendida via, s' io non potea
Seguire i passi suoi?"
Now I am sure you do not know where those lines are from. They are
a wee bit altered from Manzoni's "Carmagnola"; and they struck me
so much, when I read them to-day, as applicable to you and me, and
made me think of your "splendida via" and all its results.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 23, 1846
Thanks for your precious letter of Saturday. You need not grieve at
having brought cares and anxieties ... upon me. You have given me
a love that repays them all; and such words as you write in that
letter strengthen me for all that our "splendida via" may entail
upon us, however contrary to my natural tastes or trying to my
natural feelings. What a delightful hope you give of your getting
away on the 2nd--but I am too wise to build upon it.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 25, 1846
.... There is a calmness and fairness and _depth_ in
conversation here which one seldom meets with in London, where
people are too much taken up by the present to dwell upon the past,
or look forward to the future--and where consequently passion and
prejudice are mixed up with most that one hears. Dante, and Milton,
and Shakespeare, etc., have little chance amid the hubbub of the
great city--but with all its faults, the great city is the place in
the world I most wish to see again.... At poor Lady Holland's one
_did_ hear the sort of conversation I find here, and surely
you must miss not only her but her house very much.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
_April_ 3, 1846
At all events pray do not distress yourself with the reflexion that
you will not be a companion to me during my political trials. You
have been feeling strong, ... that strength will, I trust, return.
I see no reason why it should not--and there is no one in existence
who can think so well with my thoughts and feel so truly with my
feelings as yourself. So in sickness and in sorrow, so in joy and
prosperity, we must rely on each other and let no discouraging
apprehensions shake our courage.
Meanwhile in Parliament the Irish Coercion Bill was dragging on. Lord
Bessborough and other Whig peers had changed their mind about its value,
and Lord John, instead of proposing an amendment, definitely opposed it.
The Protectionists, eager to revenge themselves upon Peel, who, they felt,
had betrayed them, caught at the opportunity and voted with the Whigs. The
Government was defeated by a large majority on the very day the Repeal of
the Corn Laws passed the House of Lords, and the Queen sent for Lord John,
who became Prime Minister in July, 1846.
This time, beyond the usual troubles in the distribution of offices, he had
no difficulty in forming a Ministry; but when formed it was in an unusually
difficult position. They were in power only because the Protectionists had
chosen to send Peel about his business, and the Irish problem was growing
more and more acute. The potato crop of 1846 was even worse than that of
1845, and Peel's system of public works had proved an expensive failure,
more pauperising than almsgiving. The Irish population fell from eight
millions to five, and those who survived handed down an intensified hatred
of England, which lives in some of their descendants to this day.
In the autumn of 1846 Lord John, little thinking that a home would soon be
offered to him by the Queen, bought a country place, Chorley Wood, near
Rickmansworth.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
CHORLEY WOOD, RICKMANSWORTH, _December_ 12, 1846
About the 10th January we all go back to town for good, as John
must be there some time before the meeting of Parliament. Oh that
meeting of Parliament! It is so different from any I have ever
looked forward to; and though it has always been awful, this is so
much _more_ so. I shall then first really feel that John is
Minister, and find out the _pains_ of the position, having as
yet little experience of anything but the pleasures of it. Then
will come the daily toil beyond his strength, the daily abuse to
reward him, and the daily trial to us both of hardly meeting for a
quarter of an hour between breakfast and bedtime. In short, I had
better not begin to enumerate the evils that await us, as they are
innumerable. However, I feel very courageous and that they will
appear trifles if he succeeds; and if he is turned out before the
end of the session, I shall never regret that he has made the
attempt. It is a fearful time to have the government in his hands;
but for that very reason I am glad that _he_ and no other has
it. The accounts from Ireland are worse and worse, and what with
the extreme misery of the unfortunate poor and the misbehaviour of
the gentry, he is made very miserable. As he said this morning, at
times they almost drive him mad.
During Lady John's long illness in Edinburgh, Francis Lord Jeffrey had been
one of her kindest friends, and had helped to brighten many a weary hour by
his visits and conversation.
_Lord Jeffrey to Lady John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _December_ 21, 1846
It is very good in you to remember my sunset visits to you in the
hotel. I never pass by its windows in these winter twilights
without thinking of you, and of the lessons of cheerful magnanimity
(as well as other things) I used to learn by the side of your
couch. The Murrays and Rutherfords are particularly well; the
latter will soon be up among you, and at his post for the opening
of a campaign of no common interest and anxiety. For my part, I am
terribly frightened--for the first time, I believe I may say, in my
life. Lord John, I believe, does not know what fear is! _sans
peur_ as _sans reproche_. But it would be a comfort to know
that even he thinks we can get out of the mess in Ireland without
some dreadful calamity. And how ugly, in fact, do things look all
round the world!
One of the first acts of Lord John's Government was to vote £10,000,000 for
the relief of Ireland. In July, 1847, Parliament was dissolved. When it met
again Lord John was reluctantly compelled to ask for its votes in support
of an Irish Bill resembling the one on which the Liberals had defeated Peel
the year before.
A bare enumeration of the difficulties which beset the new Prime Minister
brings home a sense of his unenviable position. Ireland was on the verge of
starvation and revolt; everywhere in Europe the rebellions which culminated
in 1848 were beginning to stir, seeming then more formidable than they
really were in their immediate consequences; in England the Chartist
movement was thought to threaten Crown and Constitution; and, in addition,
the country had taken alarm at the weakness of its military defences.
Lastly, for power to meet all these emergencies Lord John was dependent, at
every juncture, upon the animosity between the Protectionists and Peelites
proving stronger than the dislike which either party felt for the
Government. There were 325 Liberals in the House; the Protectionists
numbered 226; the Conservative Free Traders 105; so the day Protectionists
and Peelites came to terms would be fatal to the Government. Such were the
troubles of the Prime Minister, who was a man to take them hard. As for his
wife, her diaries and letters show that, however high her spirit and firm
her principles, her nature was an intensely anxious one.
In December, 1846, they both went down for a short holiday to Chorley Wood,
where, on the last night of the year, they held a "grand ball for children
and servants. All very merry. John danced a great deal, and I not a little.
Darling Johnny danced the first country dance, holding his Papa's hand and
mine."